because there will have to be to avoid us being relegated. This is not a knee jerk reaction but a heavy dose of reality that was clearly predictable before even a ball was kicked this season. By my reckoning our only effort on goal was a tame header in the 95th minute by Emyr Huws. Where are the goals going to come from, including Bournemouth that's now over 6 1/2 hours without scoring a goal? Maybe this was a blessing in disguise because now surely the people who run this football club can see that the players and the manager are just simply not good enough by a long long chalk.
Bit early yet to throw the towel in, surely you'll be above Newcastle and Leeds this season, chin up lads!.............
I said to the Mrs walking out, if I'd just watched that match on the tv as a neutral I'd be looking up City's odds of going down. That was a performance of a side that's going to be right in the ****. Absolutely clueless. A striker won't fix that as he'd suffer the horrendous lack of service all the others have. Trollope made Slade look like Guardiola today. We'll be playing in front of less than 10k if that continues. I'm not sure I'll be one. Optimism demolished.
Fair comments Stevo. Ironically most around me were calling for subs to be made. Trouble is no one told Zohore to mark Caulker as Fred had done fairly effectively. Notwithstanding that we were even worse in trying to go forward when the subs came on. However, the ref was totally ineffective in refusing to take more positive action over their regular fouling and time wasting. Henry in particular got away with murder. Yes, the ref gave the fouls but surely he should have had a yellow after the 3rd or 4th time? In addition, his tolerance of their time wasting knew no bounds and events on the back of that resulted in their second. 1. Noonie was clearly held back by the corner flag as he tried to get up from the tangle with their full back. No. Free kick to them which they took nearly a minute to take. 2. Shortly after that, goal kick to them, another 30 seconds gone. 3. Throw in on their left, another 25 seconds to take a throw in ffs!!! I timed these to be sure. If the twat in black had insisted on the kicks/throw being taken promptly it is unlikely the pen would have occured. Despite this blatant time wasting and extra time to be added for injuries to their players. Only 5 minutes added allowed. In saying that we deserved nothing from the game. They changed tactics at half time and pressed up on stopping Jazz and Declan from getting forward as much and that restricted our attacking options to.................none!!! One feeble header on target in the whole game. Does Trollope know you win games by scoring goals? As Stevo said, you can't blame the strikers as any service to them was low, ponderous and easily identified. Suarez and Neymar would struggle in our team. The only saving grace at all is Blackburn on Wednesday, they appear to be even more ****e than us. Yours, disgruntled from Bridgend!!!!
..Oh yes So it does, I really don't know what's the matter with me today, need more sun!! ..................
Very average performance. Can only hope they are still getting used to Trollope. I predicated mid-table. I think lower mid-table may be closer to the mark.
Maybe a bit early for that Nin but I know where you're coming from. Had to check that we were playing at home during the game. No attacking intent let alone ability, we looked for all the world to be set up for an away draw. Even though we played reasonably well the first half, there seemed little appetite for any adventure in our game. Maybe deep down that was in the knowledge that we have a dreadful attacking force - I use the word "force" loosely - and that the best we can hope for is to keep the point we started with. I'd hoped for some midfield flair to push through and run at defenders to create space but it's just not happening. Ralls and Immers were very poor in this area, and the supply from Whitts and the wingbacks was never going to hurt their defenders whoever we had up front. When you combine that with Pilks trying too hard and overcooking it too often whilst the Gounongbe/Zahore target man options have failed abysmally so far, we have nowhere left to turn. I hope Trollope has plan B because at the moment we look as clueless of how to win a game as we did under Slade.
1 shot on goal in 90 minutes says it all. If we arent going to sign a decent striker, why not give the responsibility to one of our youngsters? Hungry and passionate, it's more than I can say for the absolute tosh we have filling that position currently!
That was much worse than anything Slade produced. Slade took us to within a couple of wins of the playoffs, we normally scored under him. No shot on target in the 90 minutes is a low Slade never subjected us to.
Slade never kicked a ball on the pitch last season neither is Trollope right now. The "no shots on target" isn't necessarily a manager issue unless Trollope wants to upset Tan and instructs them not to do it........ There were 13 outfield players employed yesterday who couldn't muster one between them - that's an indictment of the sum of the parts nothing else. If Trollope has any sense (and I think he actually has plenty) he'll set out to play much higher up the pitch against Blackburn and press them in their own half. If we were playing them away, I'd still be inclined to do that rather than playing sideways in our own half waiting for an opposition mistake. This sit back and wait attitude is so negative to the point of sheer boredom and will result in a further dwindling of attendances. There were only about 15K there yesterday and there'll be nothing like that on Wednesday to watch a repeat of that sort of stuff.
The whole performance was diabolical, Jazz Richards is a pile of crap and cannot cross a ball to save his life, not that theres anyone in the middle anyway, John isnt much better, what was all that about with the free kick, Whitts had obviously been told to do that, beggars belief. Trollope needs to get it into his head that most coaches do not go shooting thier mouth off as to the formation he is going to set, which looks like for the whole season. The 2 strikers that we seem to have to do with are both inept and do not even know how to hold the line, hence the number of times we were caught offside. On a brighter not i though Caulker played very well, nice to see him back albeit in a hoops shirt. If we do not beat Blackburn then serious questions have to be asked. Not kneejerk but we are shapeless and cannot score for the love of money.
makes you wonder why we have a season when we could just keep it cheap and decide finishing positions after two games init.........ffs chin up lads it could be worse you could have been born a jack
Oh it was a manager issue though. Whilst focusing on the zero on target we haven't mentioned we'd mustered 2 (TWO!!!) shots off target in the 90 minutes. That's a symptom of a very poor attacking setup/plan. He waited till we were losing to make a significant change and then his new plan was very ineffective. We are desperately short of creativity and goal scorers. Immers looked very limited in midfield, Pilks is not a number 10 and Whits was so ponderous in his distribution our whole side was hamstrung by the painfully slow movement of the ball. I thought Ralls was ok. If we were going to score it was going to be him and John combining. Ralls was the only midfielder we had that looked capable of matching QPR's work rate too. If you are going to play 3-5-2 you have to dominate the middle of the pitch, we didn't. Hopefully QPR were brilliant and should deserve more credit than they're getting for a very effective performance. I don't think they were but as Aber says it's only 2 games and we ok against Brum.
So Trollope told them he didn't want them to have any shots on target and whilst they were at it, only go for two off target as well. Come on Stevo - I accept Trollope's game plan was flawed, in fact I've already said that on here, but even a negative defensive approach doesn't prevent those on the pitch to have a go. They are lethargic and lacking in any flair whatsoever. The fact of the matter is that we have much the same players as last season out there and they look visibly stale. When you couple that fact with a new "strike force" of Zahore and Gounongbe to spearhead the team up front, that is where the problem lies no matter what system we employ.
Hang on Sparkey. You can't say that Slade was to blame for poor results but with Trollope it is the players. Look at the game against Fulham. It was pretty much wonder goals not well worked plays.
Must admit Temple, it does sound a bit odd blaming Slade last year and then saying it's the players who need to shape up this season. I did also say that it would probably have been better to go for broke and recruit a manager externally to shake up the apparent cosy atmosphere rather than promote Trollope. The fact is Slade built that team in his image and they now need to shake off that cloak of anonymity that he brought to the club. They need to stand up and be counted under Trollope who at least is trying something different whereas they're pretty much doing the same thing on the pitch as last year. It is down to tactics, system and management, but you need a positive frame of mind from the 11 you send out there or we'll be in the **** come the second half of the season.
When your side's top scorer is a defender from another club, when your best goalkeeper and second best goalkeepers are sold in favour of an untried replacement and when any player worth anything is clearly for sale then there is little hope for a successful season. When a side can't score the best you can hope for is an average of one point per game which leads me to conclude that we are in for a relegation fight. That said the club needs to reduce its expenditure in preparation for the end of the FFP money but the overall situation leaves little prospect for optimism. We must therefore be one of the worst 3 clubs in the Division and we will be lucky to survive.
